How To Choose The Right AP Recovery Audit Partner
I’ve sold a lot of AP recovery audits over the years. And my favorite part of that process isn’t the pitch. It’s the conversation. I’ll sit with a prospective client, let them ask me anything they want, and then I ask them questions too, because I want to know whether we’re actually a good match. A recovery audit is a partnership, and not every partnership is the right one.
One question I like to ask is simple: how are you going to choose your next audit partner? What’s important to you? The answers tell me a lot. Some companies honestly don’t know how to answer. They’ve never thought about it. Others say, “Procurement gave us a checklist.” And here’s the problem with that: those checklists tend to measure generic benchmark items, not the things that actually matter in an AP recovery audit.
So I put together the things I’d actually think about when choosing an auditor. Here’s my list.
1. Do they understand the “why,” not just the “what”?
A good auditor doesn’t just hand you a list of errors, but explains why each one happened. Root causes: vendor master problems, inconsistent processes, a misconfigured ERP. That understanding is what cuts down false positives and surfaces the findings other people miss.
2. Real experience in your world
AP breaks differently at a manufacturer, a retailer, and a hospital. Ask whether the partner actually knows your industry and your systems. Experience with your kind of environment is the difference between an audit that finds the obvious and one that finds the hidden.
3. Technology, not just people
The best audits pair experienced people with real technology. If a partner relies on manual review alone, they’ll miss things and take longer doing it. Ask how they use data analytics and automation to review 100% of your transactions instead of a sample.
4. Transparency you can see
You want real-time visibility: a portal where you can watch flagged items, recovery progress, and open issues as they move. That transparency builds trust and lets you manage the engagement instead of waiting for a report at the end.
5. They’ll protect your vendor relationships
A recovery audit should never strain your relationships with suppliers. Make sure any vendor communication is reviewed and approved by your team, and that the partner handles outreach professionally. Recovered dollars aren’t worth a damaged supplier relationship.
6. A track record you can check
Ask about results, recoveries delivered, process issues surfaced, and talk to references. A partner worth hiring has a history they’re happy to show you.
7. Flexibility to fit how you work
Scope, reporting format, frequency: a good partner adapts to you, not the other way around. And they’ll be honest about how often you should audit. My view: don’t let it go more than a year or two.
8. Prevention, not just recovery
This is the one most checklists miss entirely. The best partners don’t only find yesterday’s errors, but help you stop tomorrow’s. Ask whether they offer tools that catch duplicates and errors before they’re paid, not just after. Recovering money is good; not losing it in the first place is better.
However you choose, choose deliberately. The right partner will recover more, teach you something about your own processes, and leave you in better shape than they found you. A checklist from procurement won’t get you there, but the right questions will.
Wondering what the right partner would find in your data? Start a no-cost Proof of Value. We only get paid a percentage of what we recover.
Karl has spent 25+ years in AP auditing and analytics, helping finance teams recover lost value and understand their payables. He writes about what he’s actually seen in the field. Read his story →